


In Mercy

by I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Body Horror, Crumbling Bones, Dark Ending, Gen, Liquefying, Losing Fingernails, Melting Eyeballs, Mercy Killing, graphic death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-12-13 05:49:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11753349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning/pseuds/I_Gave_You_Fair_Warning
Summary: The events of Karen Miller's “Clone Wars Gambit” duology go just a bit different. Because when a demonstration was announced in the book, I was hoping for (though I knew it couldn't happen) Obi-Wan to get hit with the melt-you-into-goo bioweapon.This story is all about Obi-Wan melting away. And I must offer thanks to the True Blood TV show, which put the whole concept very visually, only far too fast. No exploding in my story, thank you very much.





	In Mercy

**Author's Note:**

> The suspense here is not whether Obi-Wan dies or not. He does. End of sentence.
> 
> Please take care of yourselves, m'dears. If you suspect this story won't make your day better, perhaps you could go read my fluff story "Moments" instead or directly after. You taking care of you is important to me.

 

“Anakin, you saw what happened to the rodent—”

“Master,” Anakin choked.

Obi-Wan searched his gaze, desperation in his own. “Please. I'm going to lose my mind, my body, by inches, until I die in terror, not even knowing who you are—  _ please _ don't let that happen.”

Anakin's soul shattered. “I can't stop it,” he whispered. “There isn't an antidote.”

“They want to force me to die by hours, losing even you. Please, let me die on my own terms, don't let them dictate my end. Let me die in the arms of my Padawan and not the arms of a stranger—”

“What are you talking about?” Though he knew.

“Kill me, please. Now, before the pain worsens, now before I forget who you are, now before I feel my body melting from the inside out.  _ Please. _ ”

Instead, Anakin held him.

Shudders wracked the dying frame, eyes going cloudy with pain. “Anakin.”

“No, I can't,” Anakin protested, his voice a sob.

Obi-Wan's breath trembled. “You would force me to experience the worst they have to offer? You would let them take everything from me?”

“I can't kill you, Master.”  
Obi-Wan was quiet for a long time, and then terrible groans began to tear themselves from his throat.

“Anakin—”

The younger Jedi watched in horror as Obi-Wan's beautiful blue eyes were shot through with red, as they melted, the gray fluid sliding down the curve of his cheek by his nose.

Obi-Wan gasped and Anakin held him more tightly.

“I can't—  _ Anakin—  _ I can't see. Please.  _ Please,  _ don't make me pass through this!”

But Anakin couldn't move.

He spied a fingernail slipping from its place, skewing strangely to the side.

“Please, it's taken my eyes, don't let it take you—” his back arched, he screamed, and Anakin wept.

Obi-Wan lay still for a long time, his breath high-pitched whining pants as his pulse fluttered madly in his throat.

Anakin watched as fingers distorted, dripping from the bone. The delicate bones losing their tendons and sliding away on the gray-tan flow.

Anakin could sense his pain, but the older Jedi didn't move as his hands were mutilated, until only the palms remained.

And then the destruction crept higher.

Anakin could only assume the same was happening to his feet, hidden within the boots.

Obi-Wan stirred.

“Anakin?”

“I'm here,” he soothed.

Obi-Wan's head rolled. “What is happening to me? I cannot  _ see _ —”

Anakin couldn't speak.  _ He's forgotten.  _ The truth of it rang through the Force, Obi-Wan could not remember the lab, the fight, the broken vial—

A panicked voice broke through Anakin's fog. “It  _ hurts—  _ what—  _ Anakin _ ?”

“Shh,” he whispered. “I'm here.”

The body in his arms convulsed, fluid seeping from its mouth.

_ Forgive me. _

For a long moment there was silence, and then Obi-Wan curled towards him, trying to hide his face in Anakin's chest. “Master,” he choked. “Qui-Gon,  _ help  _ me—”

Tears burned Anakin's eyes. He simply held the other man close.

The whimpers faded as the melting frame convulsed, then again— again—

Anakin nearly lost his grip, had to move his hands—

The flesh clinging to his fingers, stringing him to Obi-Wan nearly made him hurl.

Obi-Wan's thrashing subsided, though in the Force, somehow it turned  _ worse. _

A stub of forearm pushed against Anakin's chest, empty eye sockets turned to him. “You're important to me,” he mumbled through a full mouth. “How are you important to me? Who— who are you?”

“I'm going to end it. I promise.” Horrified, Anakin found his fingers gripping his lightsaber.

He'd thought he couldn't.

Apparently there were worse things.

Obi-Wan sensed his intent. With a hoarse cry, he launched himself away from Anakin, spilling to the floor and struggling to crawl away. Bones broke, pathetic snaps almost drowned out by Obi-Wan's cries as each one crumbled.

Anakin grit his teeth against the bile. “Master—”

“You want to kill me,” Obi-Wan choked, struggling to move—

And not getting anywhere.

“You asked me to, back when you could remember.”

“ _ No— _ ”

_ I failed you. I should have done this so much sooner. I'm sorry. _

He caught the shivering form, pressed the emitter over his heart, and thumbed the ignition switch.

A gasp of shock and pain from his master—

And then breath stilled.

The body didn't.

Twitches of movement as tissue continued falling apart—

Anakin gathered the corpse into his arms again,  _ knowing  _ Obi-Wan could have retained consciousness for this—

The body melted in his arms, flesh sloughing, spilling—

Anakin saw his ribcage, saw the bones crumbling.

Teeth slid from the opened mouth, freed from a jaw that was coming unhinged.

Anakin couldn't move. He knelt there as the body draped across his arms  _ conformed  _ to them, then dripped away. He was left with drenched fabric, viscous remains clinging to his hands, his own clothes, staining his boots and soaking through to his knees.

He tried to disentangle himself from the liquefied corpse, but the scattered auburn hairs stuck to his hands.

Bolting to his feet, he clawed at himself, trying to  _ escape— _

“Easy,” a voice murmured, kind hands helping him shed his robes. “Here. This way.”  
Anakin turned, his field of vision impaired, unable to make sense of any of the shapes except those directly ahead.

A decontamination area, with the white plastoids that marked the work of the Galaxy Health Organization, intervening to contain the toxic spill and weapon.

He accepted the cold water beating against his skin, heard directions being given—

Could make no  _ sense  _ of them.

He used the cleanser he was handed to desperately try to rid himself of the stench of death— to strip it from his hair, carve it out from under his fingernails—

He saw the now-crimson water head to the drain for containment, the tiny chunks that caught in the grate—

_ Obi-Wan _ , being washed away.

His gut clamped, and particulates of another sort joined the mess on the floor. He retched again, wishing someone would put a blaster to his head  _ now,  _ please—

Plastoid-protected hands steadied him, the same ones as before—

He looked up, found Windu's eyes behind the bio-hazard helmet. The face was lined with grief, and Anakin thought he saw tears.

It seemed forever before the other figures signaled he could leave the water. They wrapped him in a towel and led him to a temporary quarantine shelter, where, surrounded by white plastoid, they drew his blood every fifteen minutes to run as many tests as possible.

_ They think Obi-Wan might have infected me. _

It was a reasonable concern, since he'd been swimming in him.

Anakin lay back on the disposable hospital table and tried to hold back the tears.

He was afraid that if he shattered here, now, too far away from Ahsoka and Padmé—

There'd be nothing left of him.

 

* * *

 

Ahsoka had heard rumors.

The Senate had been presented with the footage of what had been done to the test rodent, and when that didn't seem to sway them enough, muted footage of Obi-Wan's death.

That had set the Republic on fire.

Ahsoka had intended to attend the trial for Lok Durd, but at the last minute the fourteen-year-old discovered she just  _ couldn't.  _ Couldn't go there, knowing she would watch Obi-Wan die.

She wasn't sure how Anakin was coping.

She knew he went. He testified.

Other than what he absolutely had to respond to, he never spoke. Not to her, not to anyone else.

There was an emptiness in his face, a gaunt touch of lingering hell in his eyes.

Ahsoka curled up on her bed, weeping, and wished she were strong enough to be there for him, but she was too broken and terrified herself to save him too.

 

* * *

 

He was having nightmares.

At first they were simple, quick.

Just sensation, a conviction he felt flesh liquefying against his hands. Or heard Obi-Wan's gargling scream.

Or caught just a glimpse of eyes draining away.

He thought it couldn't get worse.

He was wrong.

This one was  _ more,  _ it was filled out—

“Why didn't you save me?” Obi-Wan stared at him with accusing eyes.

Anakin struggled to breathe. “I  _ couldn't.  _ There was nothing I could do to save you—”

“You could have killed me. Why did you deny my request?”

“I couldn't— I  _ couldn't— _ ”

“You could have saved me. You didn't. You made me walk through it all.  _ You  _ did this to me.”

Anakin awoke to tears on his cheeks and a raw agony in his heart.

Again, again it happened, Obi-Wan accusing him, his body broken and dripping as he stared at Anakin in condemnation.

And then they began to morph.

Instead of the accusations, he was  _ there  _ again, on the floor, holding Obi-Wan as the man begged for Anakin to have mercy on him— 

Anakin wept, screamed, raged,  _ it's not real, it's not real, it's over, this is a dream— _

But the memory would not let him be.

Anakin walked the halls of the Resolute, looking skeletal himself. The hollows under his eyes, fallen-in cheeks, eyes that looked humongous in his face...

Many of the clones weren't better off.

Several felt little comfort in the fact that the trial had resulted in an appropriately severe punishment for the man who had done this.

None of it would bring their General back.

Anakin commanded both 501 st and 212 th now, but everything felt empty without the cautious, humorous, kind and brave man at his side.

_ And the memories are going to kill me. _

“What is it you regret?” Rex finally asked.

Unable to bring himself to be angry at Rex's interference, Anakin looked at him dully and said, “Not giving him what he asked for.”

“Next time the dream comes, don't do what you  _ did.  _ Do what you wish you had.”  
Anakin turned away from him, too damaged to care that Rex cared.

 

* * *

 

“Let me choose my death,” Obi-Wan pleaded. “Don't let them take everything from me.” He stared up at Anakin with dread-filled, beautiful eyes. His voice trembled from pain that had not yet moved beyond the point of endurance.

Anakin caressed his face with a gentle hand, then drew his saber, pressed the emitter to Obi-Wan's chest—

Gratitude flooded Obi-Wan's face, wrapped around Anakin as Obi-Wan gave him one last embrace in the Force—

“Thank you,” Obi-Wan breathed.

Anakin gave him a tear-blurred nod, grit his teeth, and pressed the ignition switch.

A single jerk of the body in his arms, a single gasp for air—

Eyes watched his until they lost the power of vision.

The body fell still for one peaceful second, and then it started quivering, the skin morphing, bone softening—

Anakin was left with nothing but liquid-drenched fabric all over his arms, legs—

_ But you didn't feel it. You didn't have to endure it. _

_You died with as little pain as possible._

Anakin allowed himself to weep, to wish he'd had the courage when it had really mattered.

When he awoke from this dream, it was without the jolt and heart attack. He cried silent, still tears in the night...

But the sharp terror and horror were gone.

_ I'm sorry, Obi-Wan. I love you. I love you so much. _

_You're gone, and I love you still._

 


End file.
